Current slat-screen assemblies can be fabricated generally by three types of methods. The first method is applied to manufacture of wood slat screens. Referring to FIG. 1, a vertical wood strip 101 is formed with a plurality of first recesses 103, and a horizontal wood strip 102 is formed with a second recess 104, allowing the second recess 104 to be engaged with a corresponding one of the first recesses 103 by means of an adhesive (not shown) applied in the recesses 103, 104 or by means of nails (not shown), so as to fix vertical wood strip 101 and the horizontal wood strip 102 together to form a slat-screen assembly. However, due to unidirectional adhesion between the vertical and horizontal wood strips 101, 102, engagement of the recesses 103, 104 may be easily damaged by an external force, and also formation of the recesses 103, 104 is labor-consuming to implement.
The second method is used for fabricating metal slat screens. Referring to FIG. 2, a vertical metal strip 201 is formed with a plurality of first grooves 203, and a horizontal metal strip 202 is formed with a plurality of second grooves 204, allowing the corresponding first and second grooves 203, 204 to be coupled to each other by means of solder 205 to form a slat-screen assembly, which is beneficially has relatively great mechanical strength. However, this method still causes significant drawbacks, such as complicated fabrication processes, roughness in solder application and difficulty in solder planarization. Moreover, a surface anodizing process is cost-ineffectively performed after fabrication of the slat-screen assembly; for an aluminum-made screen assembly, anodizing may not be formed uniformly due to property change of the aluminum material during soldering.
The third method involves screw fastening. Referring to FIG. 3, a vertical aluminum member 301 having a vertical fixing plate 301′ is formed with a first indent 303, and a horizontal aluminum member 302 having a horizontal fixing plate 302′ is formed with a second indent 304. Since recessed depths D1′, D2′ of the first and second indents 303, 304 respectively are smaller than depths D1, D2 of positions where the fixing plates 301′, 302′ are located, therefore, an aperture can be formed on each of the vertical and horizontal fixing plates 301′, 302′ corresponding in position to the first or second indent 303, 304. When the first indent 303 is engaged with the second indent 304, a screw 305 can penetrate through the aperture of the vertical fixing plate 301′, the first and second indents 303, 304 and the aperture of the horizontal fixing plate 302′, to thereby fix the vertical and horizontal members 301, 302 together and form a slat-screen assembly on which a cover 306 is mounted to cover the screw 305, as shown in FIG. 4. This slat-screen assembly has a desirable appearance and mechanical strength, and each of the vertical and horizontal members 301 and 302 can be anodized or painted before assembly. However, this assembling method is complex and time-ineffective to perform, and the cover 306 may drop off during movement of the slat-screen assembly. Moreover, seams 401, 402 are respectively left at junctions between the vertical member 301 with the horizontal member 302 and the cover 306, which would degrade the appearance of the slat-screen assembly; further, the slat-screen assembly can not be flexibly or variously shaped.